


Sick Day

by deathwailart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M, Family Bonding, Parenthood, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:12:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Sef is ill, Altair is a hovering dad and Maria is practical but no less concerned than Altair.  Written for the prompt: Altair/Maria, sick child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

It isn't that she's unsympathetic. Of course it breaks her heart to see her son lying there in his bed, coughing and wheezing, his little cheeks flushed red as he squirms under the covers but she's been ill before and remembers it well. When Altaïr had Masyaf and bureaus, often they had to camp wherever they could in less than ideal conditions and she's suffered the indignities of rattling coughs, headaches that pulsed so violently she swore her brain would burst from her skull, bouts of her stomach roiling with vomit and worse leaving her sure she would die and fevers where she had been delirious. It wasn't that he was soft but Masyaf was worlds apart from how the rest lived – up here on the mountain of learned men and bountiful stores, protected and nestled, each one of them receiving the best of care they could provide for. Their medical knowledge here surpassed what she had known at home but even all that and the assurance that Darim had been sick like this and had bounced back wasn't enough to satisfy her husband who stayed by his bedside far longer than he needed to. It doesn't matter how many times she tells him that Sef is strong and he'll be up and around in no time attempting to copy him (oh that time they managed to get into the armoury, attempting to drag a sword out, Malik bent over and wheezing with laughter as Ra'uf apologised over and over for not having his apprentices be more vigilant) and rampaging through the study when they're reading and trying to make sure Masyaf is running smoothly.  
  
He moves to rest one hand on Sef's head to check his temperature for perhaps the hundredth time that day and before she can stop herself, she smacks it away and fixes him with the stern glare that's cowed many a soldier and more recently a novice in their tracks.  
  
"Would you _stop_ ," she hisses through clenched teeth, always quiet here where the sick and wounded are even though it's only them, their son and a couple of young Assassins with broken bones. She always shows respect to those who can heal even if they only provide words or their presence – she floundered so often with dying men, holding their hands and wishing bitterly she knew the right words to bring them some measure of comfort.  
  
"Stop what?" He asks and heaven help her he sounds genuinely befuddled.  
  
"That," she snaps pointing at his hand and Sef's forehead.  
  
"We must keep track of his fever-"  
  
"No, _they_ ," she jerks her chin towards a man in his long white coat (studiously looking anywhere but the master and his wife having a spat in his rooms) working on some sort of salve, "keep track of the fever. You are as useful as a lump on a log."  
  
"Maria-"  
  
"Oh don't you _Maria_ me, that tone of voice never works." Except it does. Because they've had this conversation – not the specifics but so many of their arguments follow the same path with minor differences to try to find a winning strategy, useless when both of them know how to fight on every level – countless times in their lives. "He is strong – of course he is, he's our son. Darim has been just as ill before. _I_ have been just as ill in my life. Here there are people with great knowledge and supplies. His fever will break, he will recover."  
  
It's as she speaks that she can hear her voice beginning to crack. Of course she hates it when their children are ill because she's always there too and that's when they see one another, sitting by a child's bed until they trade so one can sleep for an hour or so then do the work that truly cannot wait. It's only once their children are both safe and well and as loud and wild as ever that they can collapse into bed together and sleep like the dead until those same children that caused the exhaustion are clattering into their room at first light wanting to know if they can do this or do that. (And that's usually when one of them, if they're feeling particularly wretched or spiteful will send them running along to wake Uncle Malik.) She's never been particularly given to tears and her parents often gave her such looks for not being that little girl, the wrong sort of girl, the one they had to force onto the 'right' path and sometimes she worries that she made an armour of it. Kept herself remote and safe but untouchable, unreachable.  
  
Altaïr reaches out, not to touch Sef but to take her hands in his, thumbs rubbing across the backs of her knuckles, smiling at her.  
  
"You are right, as ever," he murmurs as he lowers their joined hands to rest atop Sef's chest, feeling the rise and fall as he breathes, less laboured now, a little deeper than this morning. Or perhaps it was last night, her eyes are so dry and gritty she feels like ants are crawling behind them.  
  
"I'm sorry I snapped."  
  
"No, you wouldn't be you. And you're right but he's our son, if anything were to happen to him..."  
  
"I know darling." It's very rare that she calls him such things in public. They're always very careful in how they present themselves when there are forces that could use any small thing against them, very much the master and his equal because as much as she would be seen as nothing less, he would not have her seen as beneath him in any way. But she always makes sure he knows, that they all know, how much she loves them and wants them even if pretty words and gestures don't come as easily to her as they do to him.  "You're tired, you should get some rest, I'll sit with him for longer and come find you."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
She allows herself a smile as he yawns and rubs at his face. "Quite sure, go, once he's well you can be the one to deal with him."  
  
Not that it's a hardship. He leans across the bed, kissing her gently then raising her hands to kiss them both before he lets go to cup Sef's face, kissing his brow.  
  
"Be good for your mother, fight as hard as both of us."  
  
She watches him leave with the weaving steps of a man who knows just how tired he is and must fight it all the way and moves her seat closer, cupping Sef's cheek in one hand, smoothing his dark hair back.  
  
"I know you only listen to your father half the time but I am your mother Sef and when _I_ tell you to listen to him, you listen to him," she instructs, half-smiling as she makes herself comfortable and prepares to hold off sleep for a little while longer, not letting go for a moment as she whispers stories to him to keep herself awake.


End file.
